Every year, millions of Americans seeking better, higher-paying jobs turn to workforce development and career-oriented higher education programs. Likewise, governments and businesses invest billions in these programs to develop the skilled workforce they need. Yet we lack consistent evidence on which programs truly deliver higher-paying careers for participants, making it difficult to scale up the programs that work and reform the programs that don’t.
The Watson School recently launched its Workforce Development Policy Lab to provide concrete answers to these questions. By using big data and rigorous statistical analysis, Watson researchers will determine which programs effectively raise participants’ long-term earnings trajectories.
“This project really starts from trying to answer what you would think is the most basic question about workforce development programs,” said Watson School Dean, John N. Friedman, “Which programs are actually successful, not just in terms of graduating students, but launching them into the types of career paths that they’re designed for?”
The School will partner with numerous local organizations, including service providers such as Building Futures and conveners such as The Rhode Island Foundation, as well as research partner Opportunity Insights.
“We’re excited to collaborate with the Watson School, whose rigorous approach to evaluating workforce programs aligns well with our mission to create lasting, positive change,” said David Cicilline, president and CEO of The Rhode Island Foundation, the largest and most comprehensive funder of nonprofit organizations in Rhode Island. “This partnership will empower us to make more informed decisions, support effective training opportunities, and ultimately help Rhode Islanders achieve greater economic security.”
The School also announced today that it would partner with RAISE US, a nonpartisan national organization recently founded by former Rhode Island Governor and U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo and former Governor of Indiana, Eric Holcomb, to address the transition to an artificial intelligence (AI) economy.
Workforce Development Policy Lab at Watson
The goal of the Workforce Development Policy Lab is to bring greater rigor to determining which programs are most effective and worthy of investment and expansion by harnessing big data to measure the effectiveness of workforce development and career-oriented training programs. The policy lab is part of the Watson School’s push to engage with policymakers locally, in Providence and Rhode Island.
The School will work with a wide range of programs that help young adults and workers gain the skills they need to succeed in the workplace, including traditional workforce development programs, apprenticeships and career-oriented degree programs at colleges and universities, among others.
Many of these programs are popular and thought to enhance career outcomes; however, there is a lack of consistent evidence showing which programs genuinely impact participants’ career paths. Consequently, workers often feel uncertain about which programs will address their needs, and businesses struggle to confidently expand successful initiatives.
Friedman noted that data on overall program effectiveness are scarce. “Currently, most claims made about these programs are anecdotal,” he said. “There’s a sense that some programs are successful, but that’s not based on rigorous analysis.” “There might be a little bit of data on what jobs students get after they complete the program,” he said, “but we don’t have a sense of their overall long-term effectiveness.”
The lab will partner with many of the recipients of grants awarded as part of Brown University’s $50 million pledge to support Rhode Island workforce development programs, with the goal of analyzing their effectiveness and improving future programs and policies. Building Futures, which received $1.5 million from Brown in January to support three initiatives, is already working with Friedman to incorporate this data collection and analysis into its program.
Andrew Cortés, president and CEO of Building Futures, expressed excitement about the partnership. “Through our partnership with the Workforce Development Policy Lab, Building Futures will contribute to a growing body of evidence on the effectiveness of workforce development programs and participate in a data-focused community of practice that will inform our work in new ways,” said Cortés. “This initiative will deepen the empirical foundation for the value of private and public investments in pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship.”
“At Building Futures, we know the power of the apprenticeship model to transform lives through family-sustaining careers — we see it every day in the people we work with,” Cortés added. “Through this innovative collaboration with the Watson School and Opportunity Insights, we will gain new tools to expand our impact and broaden the shared understanding of the value of registered apprenticeship.”
RAISE US partnership
The Workforce Development Policy Lab also announced its partnership with RAISE US, created to help states develop new strategies and build infrastructure that connect people to new career opportunities in an AI economy, engage with leading employers to design new programs to help redeploy displaced workers, and turn data-driven insights into actionable recommendations.
“RAISE US is piloting a number of innovative models for workforce development,” said Friedman, “We are excited to partner with them to determine the most impactful ways we can confront workforce challenges from AI.” According to Friedman, the Watson School and Opportunity Insights will work with RAISE US to test new strategies, measure outcomes, and help turn what works into national practice.
“America has a technology strategy for leading the global AI competition. It does not yet have a people strategy — and we cannot lead without one,” said Raimondo, who will serve as CEO of RAISE US. “If we build the best AI systems in the world and leave millions of Americans behind, we won’t have won anything; we’ll have automated our own decline.”
“I believe AI will create new jobs and industries over time,” Raimondo added, “but the transition could be disruptive, and it’s already underway. We shouldn’t fearmonger, but we can’t pretend our training and worker support systems are ready, either. It’s time for innovative and practical solutions. This moment demands ambition, urgency, and creativity. We’ve assembled the country’s leading companies, best economists and philanthropy at a scale rarely seen — all to advance new ideas and incentives, pilot them with governors and business, and scale what works.”
Innovative methodology
Watson researchers will utilize cutting-edge methodologies recently developed by Opportunity Insights, a research and policy institute focused on improving economic opportunity of which Friedman is co-director. “The tools developed by researchers at Opportunity Insights greatly expand our ability to measure which programs work and which don’t,” said Friedman, “and at Watson we will be applying them as broadly as we can to help students, programs and policymakers.”
